Bearded Lady.

Driving up the hill this morning the first specks of snow began to fall. The road was clear for the journey in but there was a proper covering of snow on the playground by 9.00. Many very excited children. Later it all melted but it was sleeting on and off all day. Taking the view that if it was sleeting down at sea level it was probably snowing at home I rang Peter and asked him to collect me on his way back from work. This gave me time to turn my classroom into a Christmas grotto, sort of, as our school Christmas starts on 1 Dec. The Advent Calendar is up, slight panic when we thought that half the numbers were missing but they had stuck on the back of a sign in my folder of laminated Christmas pictures and labels. Threw some tinsel along the windows, hung up the squares the children had been measuring and hey presto, it's Christmas. Peter turned up as I was frantically hanging decorations so there's still some stuff to put up tomorrow. Same story as yesterday, not a sign of snow or ice as we drove out of town. Then snow in the fields and once we turned onto the back road more snow and ice on the road. Going up the long hill by the Lewis' farm there was a big articulated metal truck/ trailer type vehicle simply not moving. Ahead we could see a car parked on the side of the road with its hazard lights flashing. At first we thought the car had slid and got stuck but when I pulled on my boots and went out to investigate it was the truck that was stuck. Luckily there is a wide verge there and Peter squeezed the Rav past, I was still out on the road because I don't like being in the vehicle when he's doing things lie that. From there on there was a significant amount of ice on the road and by the time we got to the top of the drive we were driving through small snow drifts. 2-3ft high drifts were already forming across our drive as the wind was blowing straight across the field. We left the Rav up on the road and plodded our way down through the drifts. Down in our garden there are several inches of snow. Thank goodness we left the heating on all day. We had to laugh when we saw ourselves after the walk down. Peter looked like a creature from Tatuine,

and I was doing a good impression of a bearded lady!

As I sat down at my pc in the sitting room I could a frantic banging on one of the windows. We had thrown the cats out for a moment when we got in but I had thought they were all back in. I opened another window and called for whichever cat it was to come in. Then I looked down and saw that all the cats were behind me. I closed the window and went to investigate, a thrush was there frantically trying to get in. I went outside and caught it as it battered itself against the kitchen window. I can only think that it was totally disorientated and was looking for warmth. Bringing it indoors would probably have been too stressful so I took it up to the scree garden sheds and left it in a sheltered corner. I hope it survives.